Paris Saint-Germain get trapped in Liverpool’s favourite game
After their blistering start to the campaign, Liverpool were on course to repeat last year’s Champions League journey which end with a runners up medal rather than the trophy. A much improved squad, and good defensive performances in the league gave positive hopes to the Liverpool fans in a tough group which contains previous champions Red Star Belgrade, Napoli, and star studded Paris Saint-Germain. PSG — the French Champions in the last 6 seasons bar a significant season from Lenoardo Jardim’s Monaco — who are still in search of European glory, continued their habit of changing their manager and injecting the squad with supreme talent.
Thomas Tuchel, the last of these managers and the first German to manage PSG set his sails to Liverpool to face Klopp’s electric side. Liverpool set up in their standard 4–3–3 with Sturridge replacing Firmino after his eye injury at Wembley last Saturday, PSG meanwhile played in a 4–3–3 system which turned to a 3–4–3 in possession with Marquinhos dropping into the back line. Marquinhos’ role was significant early in the game as he managed to track Sturridge’s movements into midfield which Firmino regularly does to offer an extra man in midfield, and neutralize Salah’s movements into the channel. This left Liverpool in a situation were they couldn’t cause any threat from the center of the field, and only had the wings to function. On the flanks, they were met by Rabiot and Di Maria who supported Meunier and Bernat respectively which presented Liverpool another problem to solve.
Most of the build up on the wings resulted in corners which Liverpool were prepared for. Klopp had two ideas for corner-kicks, in-swingers and out-swingers. For the in-swingers, Liverpool players jammed the 6 yard box and crossed the ball towards the near post hoping for a deflection or a header, as for the out-swingers they were mainly towards Van Dijk’s near post runs. Neither of these plans succeeded, however a short corner resulted in their first major chance as the ball fell to Van Dijk who was denied by a good Areola save.
Paris Saint-Germain’s main idea was to neutralize Liverpool’s threat, leaving their front trio of Neymar-Cavani-Mbappe with no defensive obligations, to harm Liverpool on the counter. In possession the wing backs would advance to create a 5 v 4 situation in the last line. The unaccountable variable that wasn’t in the equation was Liverpool’s ability to recover the ball on a defensive transition, resulting in less counter attacking opportunities and keeping the game in a ‘offensive/defensive transitions’ phase which is Liverpool’s bread and butter. The second issue that Tuchel and co faced was their midfield’s inability to cover the whole width of the field, meaning that faster movement of the ball from one side to the other created an extra man. The full backs were most probably the extra man, and a right sided cross from Alexander-Arnold found no one and fell to Robertson — an accidental cross field pass which reached the free man — whose brilliant cross found Sturridge’s head to open the scoring for Liverpool. Things got worse for Tuchel as Bernat fouled Wijnaldum clumsily after a Liverpool offensive transition, and James Milner scored the penalty to make it 2–0.
Before the end of the half Tuchel’s 3–4–3 in possession finally paid off as Di Maria’s cross found Meunier the right wing back to find the net with an instinctive finish. A placed shot that shouldn’t come as a surprise knowing that the Belgian use to play as a striker in his early days. In the second half, Liverpool were more aware of Paris Saint-Germain’s system deficiencies, and moved the ball horizontally with greater pace and less passes. This produced two chances through which they could have extended their lead, Salah’s disallowed goal and Sturridge’s header which he could have finished better.
10 minutes before time Tuchel made two changes subbing Draxler and Choupo-Moting for Di Maria and Cavani, and changing the shape into a 4–3–1–2. The change put Neymar in a central role, much closer to the goal, but it was Liverpool’s sloppiness in midfield that gave the Brazilian the space to dazzle through midfield. One of his runs found Mbappe, who equalized the score. Neymar once again found Draxler with a midfield splitting pass, however the German’s shot was blocked by Van Dijk. Liverpool’s control in the dying minutes continued and from a recovered ball by Milner, Firmino managed to clinch the winner.
Tuchel’s offensive plan of using the wing backs and counter attacking was contained by Liverpool’s outstanding ability in recovering the ball during defensive transitions thanks to Henderson and Milner. His stars could have cost him the game, but they could have also won it if Draxler managed to score, a more calculated approach is the worth the risk. For Klopp, it’s another impressive performance but question marks are beginning to appear regarding the clinicality of his attackers.
